James B. McPherson

James Birdseye McPherson (14 November 1828-22 July 1864) was a Major-General of the US Army during the American Civil War. He was killed at the Battle of Atlanta in 1864 while observing the Union front lines.

Biography
James Birdseye McPherson was born in Clyde, Ohio in 1828, and he graduated from West Point in 1853, first in his class. From 1857 to 1861, he served as a US Army engineer in California, supervising the construction of the fortress island of Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay. When the American Civil War broke out, McPherson became a staff officer under Henry Halleck as a Captain, and he served as the chief engineer in Ulysses S. Grant's army during his assaults on Forts Henry and Donelson in Tennessee in 1862. After the Battle of Shiloh, he was promoted to Brigadier-General, and he was promoted to Major-General on 8 October 1862 and given command of the Army of Tennessee in early 1864 as a Major-General. McPherson led the right flank of William T. Sherman's army during his advance on Atlanta, Georgia in 1864, and he was accosted by a group of Confederate skirmishers during the Battle of Atlanta while riding to meet up with his XVII Corps. The Confederate skirmishers ordered him to halt, and they opened fire as McPherson suddenly attempted to escape. McPherson's orderly told the Confederates that they had killed the best man in Sherman's army, and the opposing Confederate general and McPherson's former West Point classmate John Bell Hood felt deep sorrow after learning of McPherson's death.